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Copies available in the Society's Gift Shop for $15
The video documents the two centuries since Joseph Charless, an Irishman, became the first pioneer newspaper publisher in Missouri. Since his July 12, 1808, issue of The Missouri Gazette in St. Louis, more than 6,000 newspapers have come and gone in the Show-Me State.
When Charless arrived to set up the first newspaper in Missouri, St. Louis was little more than a riverfront village, a settlement of European immigrants and westward migrating pioneers. While everyone struggled, the transplanted printer had unique problems. How could he get a reliable supply of paper and ink to such a remote settlement? Where could he find help to produce a regular newspaper? How could he support his family until his Gazette developed an audience.
Charless enjoyed a benefactor. Meriwether Lewis, the governor of the territory, gave money to Charless to buy a printing press so he could print the laws of the territory.
The Missouri Gazette began as a four-page weekly. It included letters from the East Coast and interviews with travelers moving West.
Charless was the first of many who faced the same obstacles as newspapers began circulating in tiny communities throughout Missouri. Many flourished along with their towns. Others disappeared quickly or whithered slowly. Many were absorbed by their competition.
“In the early days, a publisher might print in St. Louis for six months, but at night-time — he always left at night because he owed bills — he’d get in his wagon, put his press in the back and his type and move down the way and start another paper,” said Dr. William H. Taft, professor emeritus of the Missouri School of Journalism and the historian of the Missouri Press Association.
The Missouri Gazette survived for 14 years. Since the first newspaper in Missouri, thousands of journalists — many of them world famous — have kept their communities informed about the news of their neighborhoods and the world.
Leading up to the Civil War, the number of newspapers in Missouri increased dramatically. Voters were divided in the border state and newspapers served as rallying beacons for political parties.
During the war, printing presses and equipment were destroyed and metal type was melted into bullets. The U.S. Post Office censored anti-Union newspapers. Some publishers buried their presses for safekeeping. Newspapers that continued printing often became casualties of war, but a few survived.
One story tells of a raid on the Western Luminary in Parkville, Missouri. Some 200 slavery sympathizers stormed the office of George Park, took his press and dumped it into the Missouri River. Park and his editor saw the crowd coming and hid their printing type in the attic.
He later wrote, “Our press has been thrown into the Missouri River. I may be buried there too – a humble individual is in the power of hundreds of armed men, but his death will not destroy the freedom of the American press. Independence of thought and action is inherent in the bosom of every free man, and it will gush up like a perpetual fountain forever.”
One world-famous Missourian, Mark Twain, after working in the newspaper offices of his father and his brother, left his boyhood town of Hannibal for adventures around the globe. In his later years, he became an honorary life member of the Missouri Press Association. In a letter written by Twain to his hometown newspaper, he remembered his days as a printer’s devil.
“To The Editor of the Courier-Post. Dear Sir: Next spring it will be 59 years since I became an apprentice in the Courier office … Surreptitiously and uninvited, I helped to edit the paper when no one was watching; therefore I was a journalist. I have never been wholly disconnected from journalism since; therefore, by my guess, I am dean of the trade in America. I hope the Courier will long survive me and remain always prosperous … Truly yours, Mark Twain.
Back in 1880, a former editor of the Kansas City Times poked fun of his new rival paper, The Kansas City Evening Star, which had cut its price in half to lure readers.
“Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,
Bright and gossipy you are;
We can daily hear you speak
For a paltry dime per week.”
The Times editor, whose own columns were a bit “bright and gossipy,” later penned many famous children’s poems, including “Little Boy Blue” and “Wynken, Blynken and Nod”.
Born in St. Louis, Eugene Field sharpened his writing skills at newspapers in Kansas City, St. Joseph and St. Louis. He was the official poet of what would become The Missouri Press Association.
“Trustees for the Public: 200 Years of Missouri Newspapers,” is not just their story. It’s a tribute to all Missouri newspaper people, those who are long gone as well as those who carry on today.
Charless, Mark Twain, Eugene Field, Joseph Pulitzer, Ernest Hemingway, Walter Williams — these are remembered, along with the Missouri Press Association’s role in founding the State Historical Society of Missouri in 1898 and the Missouri School of Journalism in 1908.
About two years ago, Missouri Press Association set to work on the video project. Recognizing 2008 as a special year for two reasons, the Association planned an observance that would last beyond that year.
Not only would 2008 be the bicentennial of the state’s first newspaper, it would be the centennial of the founding of the world’s first School of Journalism.
In the video, publishers and editors of Missouri newspapers recount stories of their careers, from the days of hot type printing and newspaper carriers hawking copies on street corners to today’s modern newsrooms, high-speed presses and the emergence of newspapers’ use of the Internet.
Columbia film producers Beth Pike and Steve Hudnell traveled the state recording scenes in big cities and small towns and filming newspaper people at big dailies and small weeklies.
Kathy Conger of The Republican-Clipper in Bethany tells the story of her first days after marrying a newspaper man. A press failure kept her husband, Phil, at the office through the night. She was home alone, wondering what might have become of her new husband.
Rex and Jon Rust tell about getting their newspaper education from their father, Gary, at the dinner table in Cape Girardeau. They enjoy being involved in their city as they apply their father’s lessons of truth and accuracy in the news.
Dr. Donald Suggs, publisher of The St. Louis American, talks about the difficulty of taking a struggling Black newspaper and turning it into a powerful presence in the community. Suggs, an oral surgeon by training, turned to something he had enjoyed as a youngster in school. He bought The American and gave voice to the African-American community in St. Louis.
Robert M. White II fondly remembers how his grandfather refused to use his newspaper, The Mexico Ledger, for political gain or influence.
“The purpose of a newspaper is to serve, to serve the people — all the people — whether you agree with them or not. Give them the truth, that’s what they really want. And, if you can establish that, you’re doing a real service for the people,” White said.
One hundred years after the first newspaper in Missouri began printing, the world’s first School of Journalism opened its doors with Boonville native Walter Williams as its dean. Williams believed that the best way to train students was to have them produce a professional newspaper. So, the University Missourian, now The Columbia Missourian, began with the opening of the school.
A history of the press in Missouri would not be complete without The Journalist’s Creed, written by Dean Williams. The creed continues to guide journalists of every nationality.
“… I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust … I believe that a journalist should only write what he holds in his heart to be true. I believe that suppression of the news for any consideration other than the welfare of society is indefensible …
“I believe that the journalism which succeeds best and that deserves success fears God and honors man, is stoutly independent, unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power, constructive, tolerant but never careless, self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers, but always unafraid; is quickly indignant at injustice, is unswayed by the appeal of privilege or the clamor of the mob, seeks to give every man a chance, and as far as law and honest wage and recognition of human brotherhood can make it so, an equal chance; is profoundly patriotic while sincerely promoting international goodwill and cementing world comradeship; is a journalism of humanity of and for today’s world.”
Copies available in the Society's Gift Shop for $15
